Since the late 1980s, U.S.-based journalism has gradually shifted away from objective news and offers more opinion-based content that appeals to emotion and relies heavily on argumentation and advocacy.

Researchers used a RAND text analysis tool to comb through tens of thousands of articles & TV transcripts to identify patterns in the use of words and phrases.

This let them a) see how news has changed in tone, sentiment, and language and b) quantify the sizes of those changes.

In print journalism, we found a modest shift toward more-subjective reporting.

Post-2000 reporting engaged in storytelling and emphasized interactions, personal perspective, and emotion more heavily than did stories in the pre-2000 period.

Broadcast television exhibited similar differences.

Before 2000, news stories tended to use precise language and often turned to public sources of authority (e.g., CDC, the World Bank). After 2000, they began to rely more on unplanned speech, opinions, interviews, and arguments.

When we compared broadcast news with prime-time cable programming, differences became starker, with cable segments dedicating more time to opinion coverage and using argumentative language.

In online journalism, researchers found that the language in digital stories tended to be more conversational than in traditional news articles, with more emphasis on interpersonal interactions and personal perspectives and opinions.

"Our research provides quantitative evidence for what we all can see in the media landscape: Journalism in the U.S. has become more subjective and consists less of the detailed event- or context-based reporting that used to characterize news coverage." — @jekavanagh

It’s important to note that these changes have been subtle, not wholesale.

In other words, news reporting has not shifted from Cronkite-style serious reporting to fiction or propaganda.

There's a lot to explore here. If you don't have time to read the full report, check out this research brief… rand.org/pubs/research_…

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AG ’did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance’… BUT ’NOTHING’ in Barr’s Findings INACCURATE breitbart.com/politics/2019/…

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Russia and Iran are engaged in disinformation campaigns aimed at US citizens. Twitter just released over 10 million tweets from over 4500 Russian and Iranian accounts engaged in influence operations dating back to 2009. We've analyzed the data. Here's what you need to know...

Russia's influence operations are far-reaching, aimed at a number of countries. This, of course, includes ops aimed at US voters in 2016, but also includes their own people. 58 Russian-language accounts tweeted regional "news" related to Crimea, Syria, and other military action.

44 US-directed local "news" accounts amassed over half a million followers. By using local-sounding news source names, they were able to dupe Americans from *other* regions to share what they thought was authentic news.

Over the holiday, WSJ published Uber financials. Didn't see much analysis of it, but I have questions. wsj.com/graphics/uber-…

Here's the last leaked Uber financials, from 2014, and the current financials from 2017. Accounting may have changed over time, but the expense line items remain the same.

You can put them into a spreadsheet side by side, and look at the expense items as a percentage of net revenues to get a sense for evolution of the P/L as Uber gained scale. Obviously a few things jump out.

I want to talk about bit about my path as a Corporate Designer. How I see myself and my role has often mirrored what the industry has told me is right, and that’s changed over time. 1/

When I was just starting out, I saw the user’s experience as something sacred. It was my hallowed responsibility as a Designer to keep that experience ~pure~. I’d go to bat for ~the user~ frequently and get into long arguments w/ other stakeholders. 2/

This “experience” I was fighting for included everything from visual polish, to intuitive IA, to never including dark patterns or shady gamification that didn't serve the user. It was SO important. 3/